Liquid waste treatment is a tremendous problem in industry. Most industrial processes create liquid waste in such forms as unwanted process byproducts and used or contaminated solvents or lubricants. An example of waste production, common to many industries, is the production of waste water. For example, salt water is a byproduct of many food canning processes. Waste water is also a byproduct of the production of paper, and of bleaching and dying processes used by the textile industry in the manufacture of garments. Waste water is also a component in sewage and food processing.
In many cases, the treatment of waste water involves the dilution of the water until the contaminants present in the water are at low enough levels to meet standards for disposal into a nearby stream or lake. This solution is not environmentally sound since the contaminants are introduced into the environment in potentially accumulating quantities. In addition, from an economic perspective, the tremendous amount of water required to dilute some contaminants may be cost prohibitive in some applications.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,292,438, 5,256,288 and 5,259,952, issued to Lee, and assigned to Cer-Wat, Inc. disclose a cross-flow filtration method and system for separating solid contaminants from liquids. By means of this method and system, waste fluids can be filtered and the contaminants removed. Both the contaminants and the waste fluids can then be reused or recycled.
While these prior art systems have many advantageous features, they lack an automated system for monitoring and controlling the filtration process provided by the present invention.